Cellular traffic offloading onto network-assisted device-to-device connections

While operators have finally started to deploy fourth generation broadband technology, many believe it will still be insufficient to meet the anticipated demand in mobile traffic over the coming years. Generally, the natural way to cope with traffic acceleration is to reduce cell size, and this can be done in many ways. The most obvious method is via picocells, but this requires additional CAPEX and OPEX investment to install and manage these new base stations. Another approach, which avoids this additional CAPEX/OPEX, involves offloading cellular traffic onto direct D2D connections whenever the users involved are in proximity. Given that most client devices are capable of establishing concurrent cellular and WiFi connections today, we expect the majority of immediate gains from this approach to come from the use of the unlicensed bands.